1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a helmet which has a head protecting cap portion worn by the rider of a motor cycle or the like to protect his/her head, the head protecting cap portion having one or a plurality of inside pads on the inside thereof, and to a method of relatively easily removing the helmet from the head.
2. Description of the Invention
A full-face-type helmet has been known. This helmet includes a full-face-type head protecting cap portion worn by the rider of a motor cycle or the like on his/her head, a shield plate capable of opening/closing the window opening formed in the front surface of the head protecting cap portion to oppose the portion between the forehead and chin of the helmet wearer, and chin straps attached to the head protecting cap portion. According to such a full-face-type helmet, almost the entire head of the helmet wearer can be protected by the head protecting cap portion.
The conventional full-face-type helmet having the above structure, however, is not easy to wear and remove from the head of wearer because the head protecting cap portion is also of a full-face type. According to recent full-face-type helmets, to improve the safety of the helmets and feeling of wearing them during a drive, the lower end portion of the head protecting cap portion is narrowed. In addition, it is heightened more to fit the head and face of the wearer due to inside pads for the checks and the like. Owing to this structure, when a helmet wearer, e.g., the rider of a motor cycle, has a traffic accident, a person who takes care of the rider needs a large force to remove the full-face-type head protecting cap portion from the head of the helmet wearer. For this reason, it is considerably difficult for one person to remove the helmet from the wearer.
This point will be described below with reference to FIG. 13. FIG. 13 shows an experiment aimed at measuring the force required to remove a full-face-type helmet 1. A bolt 61 with a ring is attached to the top portion of a head protecting cap portion 2 of a conventional full-face-type helmet 1 worn on the head of a helmet wearer 10. The lower end of a spring balancer 62 is coupled to the bolt 61.
In the state shown in FIG. 13 (the chin straps (not shown) were unfastened from the chin of the wearer 10), the upper end of the spring balancer 62 was pulled upward. In this case, the helmet 1 could not be removed until a tension of 16 kg was applied to the top portion of the head protecting cap portion 2. In contrast to this, when the pair of right and left inside pads for the cheeks were detached from the interior of the head protecting cap portion 2, the helmet 1 could be removed by applying only a tension of 2.5 kg to the top portion of the head protecting cap portion 2.
The experiment shown in FIG. 13 revealed that a large force was usually required to remove the full-face-type helmet 1, and that not so large force was required to remove the full-face-type helmet 1 when the blockish inside pads for the cheeks were detached from the interior of the head protecting cap portion 2.